Mike Mills (from R.E.M.) & David Mallamud after the premiere of Mills' Concerto for Rock Band and Violin (with arrangements and additional music by Mallamud)

A MacDowell and Dramatist Guild Fellow, David Mallamud writes music that transports his listeners to a dazzling vaudeville stage, a dimly lit cabaret, a fantastical Beach of Sneetches, or the hidden recesses of Nijinsky’s psyche with equally ingenious insight. He has composed for venues ranging from Carnegie Hall to Off-Broadway, where his music for the recent production of Flight School: The Musical was lauded by Laurel Graeber of the New York Times as the show’s “biggest boon . . . worthy of bigger stages, variously embracing classical lyricism, pulsing pop, the poignant ballad and at least one all-out, Alice Cooper–style rock rant.”

Recently Mallamud was thrilled to work with Mike Mills (of R.E.M. fame), arranging and composing additional music for his Concerto for Rock Band and Violin, written for violinist Robert McDuffie, who premiered it with Mills and the Toronto Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Peter Oundjian. It toured the US and has upcoming performances at Brevard and with The Buffalo Philharmonic. Mallamud’s other recent and current projects include Dr. Seuss’s The Sneetches The Musical, in collaboration with playwright Philip Dawkins, which premiered at the Children’s Theatre Company in Minneapolis in 2017; Flight School which had several off-broadway runs, a US tour and is currently touring China; Kid Frankenstein (written with Peter Charles Morris) which ran Off-Broadway in the Fall of 2017; nine song cycles for Dogs of Desire, the Albany Symphony’s rock-inspired new music ensemble - including Spittoonia on the Erie (written with Nathan Christiansen), which was later blown up to full orchestra and performed by The Albany Symphony on a barge in the Erie Canal as part of their Water Music New York project to celebrate the 200th anniversary of the Erie Canal - announced by Governor Cuomo; his ballet Elegy for the Metropolitan Ballet (Twin Cities) with the Kenwood Symphony; a solo classical guitar piece, Spatula, Published by Les Productions D'Oz; and projects with Emmy-nominated lyricist Alisa Hauser, playwright Joshua H. Cohen, and librettist Len Schiff. His acclaimed CD, The Wild and Whimsical World of David Mallamud (Broadway Records), which won a Broadway World Album Award for Best New Compilation, features some of today’s greatest Broadway voices: Sierra Boggess, Christiane Noll, Constantine Maroulis, Amick Byram, Janet Dacal, Morgan James, Brian Charles Rooney, as well as Irish singers Cathie Ryan and Dan Webb, conducted by David Alan Miller. Also featured are Eric Rigler on uilleann pipes (films Braveheart and Titanic) and guitarist Joel Hoekstra (Rock of Ages, Trans-Siberian Orchestra, and Whitesnake).

Mallamud’s concert works have been championed by the Albany, Harrisburg, and New World Symphonies as well as the Westchester Philharmonic. His prowess in writing purely orchestral music was appreciated by New York Times critic Anthony Tomasini, who said about Mallamud’s Frenzy: “Imagine Stravinsky in his ‘Rite of Spring’ mode writing music for the dance at the gym scene in ‘West Side Story’ and you get the idea.” Similarly, Mallamud’s wit and love of mixing styles in the vocal realm won praise from Amy Biancolli (Albany’s Times Union), who wrote of his CD, The Wild & Whimsical Worlds of David Mallamud: “The sum is an album of music conceived for imaginary stages in imaginary worlds, but rendered like old hands, with all the relaxed brio of a Broadway cast album. Whether aching or upbeat, whether evoking Disney or Bernstein or Tin Pan Alley or "Tommy," the music is delightful. It's also insane. There's a nuttiness to the whole thing, a kind of crazed enthusiasm in its many and omnivorous references, that cannot be underemphasized.”

Mallamud has been honored with a prestigious Charles Ives Scholarship from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, two Morton Gould Young Composer Awards from ASCAP, and the Leonard Bernstein Fellowship at Tanglewood. He earned his bachelor’s degree from the Eastman School of Music and master’s degrees from both Juilliard and NYU’s Tisch Graduate Musical Theater Writing Program, pursuing additional graduate studies at Yale with Ned Rorem and Evan Ziporyn.